AI Guides › Workbench
By Nigel Guy · 7 min read
The usual way to meet plugins is a headline saying Anthropic has turned Claude into a whole company, followed by an install of everything on the list. You end up with a dozen bundles of instructions you have never read, none tied to a task you actually do on a Tuesday. The fix is to pick by the work you repeat, install one, and test it on a real job.
The rule: install a plugin for a job you already do every week, test it on one real piece of work, and only then add the next.
A plugin is a package. Anthropic's help centre says each one bundles skills, connectors and sub-agents so you don't set each up separately. Skills are written instructions Claude follows; connectors link to tools such as Gmail, Slack or Google Drive; sub-agents are helpers for parts of a job. In Claude Code a plugin can also carry hooks and MCP servers.
The headline is partly real. Anthropic does publish an open-source collection, anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins, under an Apache-2.0 licence. At time of writing it lists eleven plugins, mostly role-specific: Productivity, Sales, Customer Support, Product Management, Marketing, Legal, Finance, Data, Enterprise Search, Bio Research and one for managing plugins. They are markdown and JSON files, with no code or infrastructure. "Quietly" and "an entire company" are the exaggeration: this is a set of role starter kits that you are expected to edit, not staff. We could not verify the date the collection first appeared, so we have left it out.
For a small UK business, these five cover the most common repeated work. "Cost" below is the plugin; the plan underneath is the real bill.
| Plugin | What it does | Cost | Best for | Catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Productivity | Tasks, calendars, workflows, personal context | Free to install; needs a paid Claude plan | Everyone, as the first install | Only as good as the context you give it |
| Sales | Prospect research, call prep, pipeline review, outreach drafts | As above | Anyone selling by conversation | Works best with a CRM connected |
| Marketing | Content drafts, campaign plans, brand voice, performance reports | As above | Owners writing their own marketing | Brand voice is only as good as the samples you supply |
| Customer Support | Ticket triage, reply drafts, knowledge-base articles | As above | Shared inboxes and helpdesks | Drafts need a human before sending |
| Finance | Journal entries, reconciliation, statements, variance analysis | As above | Bookkeepers and finance leads | Check the output against your ledger; see guardrails |
Legal is in the collection too, but we have not verified that its templates suit UK law, so it is not in the first five. Treat anything it produces as a draft for a solicitor.
What it costs. Plugins are available on all paid plans (Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise). At time of writing Pro is $20 a month, or $17 a month billed annually (about £15, or about £13, at time of writing). Team Standard is $20 per seat a month billed annually, or $25 monthly (about £15 or £19). Max starts at $100 (about £75). Check the £ price at checkout, because tax and exchange rates move it.
In Cowork (no terminal). Open the Cowork tab, select Customize, go to the Plugins tab, choose Discover, then click Add beside the plugin. To change one afterwards, click Customize on the installed plugin and adjust its skills and connectors. This is the path for most readers.
In Claude Code. Add the collection once, then install by name:
claude plugin marketplace add anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins
claude plugin install sales@knowledge-work-plugins
Inside a session you can instead run /plugin and browse the Discover tab. After installing, type / and look for the plugin's skills in the form /<plugin>:<skill>; the repository gives /sales:call-prep as an example. Two details from the docs: knowledge-work-plugins is one of Anthropic's official marketplace names, but auto-update is off for it by default, so updating is up to you, and running claude plugin details <name> shows what an installed plugin adds to every session.
Don't invent a demo. Paste real work in, in a form you can afford to get wrong. Fill in the square brackets, and note that skill names inside each plugin vary, so describe the job in plain words rather than guessing a command.
Productivity. Fill in your priorities and calendar notes.
Act as my chief of staff using the Productivity plugin. Context: I run [BUSINESS_TYPE] with [TEAM_SIZE] people. This week's commitments: [LIST_OF_COMMITMENTS]. Fixed meetings: [MEETINGS_AND_TIMES].
Goal: a week plan that protects [TWO_HOURS_A_DAY_OF_FOCUS_WORK] and shows what will slip.
Steps: 1) list tasks with a realistic time estimate; 2) place them around the fixed meetings; 3) name the two tasks most likely to slip and why.
Output: a table of day, task, time, and a three-line risk note.
Rules: if estimates or deadlines are missing, ask me before planning. Do not invent meetings. Before answering, check that nothing is double-booked.
Sales. Fill in a real prospect and your offer.
Act as a sales researcher using the Sales plugin. Prospect: [COMPANY_AND_CONTACT]. My offer: [ONE_SENTENCE_OFFER]. Call date: [DATE].
Goal: a one-page call brief I can read in five minutes.
Include: what the company does, three questions to ask, two likely objections with replies, and one clear next step to propose.
Rules: use only sources you can name and mark anything unverified as "unconfirmed". If you lack context on the prospect, ask for it. Do not guess figures. Self-check: is every claim either sourced or marked unconfirmed?
Marketing. Paste two or three real pieces in your own voice.
Act as a marketing editor using the Marketing plugin. Brand voice samples: [PASTE_2_OR_3_SAMPLES]. Audience: [AUDIENCE]. Topic: [TOPIC]. Channel and length: [CHANNEL_AND_LENGTH].
Goal: one draft that sounds like the samples, then a short list of what you copied from the voice and what you were unsure of.
Rules: British English; no invented statistics, quotes or customer claims; ask if the audience or goal is unclear. Self-check: remove any sentence the samples would never contain.
Customer Support. Paste an anonymised real enquiry.
Act as a support lead using the Customer Support plugin. Enquiry (personal details removed): [PASTE_ENQUIRY]. Our policy: [PASTE_RELEVANT_POLICY].
Goal: a reply I can send after a quick edit, plus a note of anything I must check first.
Steps: 1) classify the enquiry; 2) draft a calm, plain reply in British English; 3) flag any promise the policy does not support.
Rules: never promise refunds or dates the policy doesn't state; ask for the policy if it is missing.
Finance. Use a small, closed month you have already finished by hand.
Act as a careful bookkeeper's assistant using the Finance plugin. Data: [PASTE_OR_ATTACH_CLOSED_MONTH_TRANSACTIONS]. Chart of accounts: [ACCOUNTS].
Goal: a draft reconciliation I can compare with my own result.
Output: matched items, unmatched items, and a list of assumptions. Rules: show every assumption; never post or file anything; ask if a category is ambiguous. Self-check: do the totals agree with the figures I supplied?
Compare each result with the work you already did. That comparison is the test.
| If your week is mostly... | Install |
|---|---|
| Juggling tasks and meetings | Productivity |
| Calls and proposals | Sales |
| Writing posts and emails | Marketing |
| Answering customers | Customer Support |
| Month-end figures | Finance |
Install one. Use it for a week. Edit its connectors and context until it stops asking you things you already told it. Then add a second.
/plugin before choosing a scope, and only install from sources you trust./ menu after installing.